...tick, tock...

I haven't worn my watch regularly since I really retired,
[when I stopped doing the "testing" for the school district...]
almost immeadiatly, the battery in my watch died , and since,
the local jeweler I'ld always taken it to,
[to have the battery changed...I have dexterity issues...],
had closed their doors after over 50 years in business,
I'm not sure that I know where to take it...

I suppose I could take it to the Mall...there must be a kiosk, somewhere,
in "Mall-land" that deals with watch batteries... but I never go there, usually,
and this time of year is not a good time to break that trend...
so, I guess, I can wait to get a new battery, after all,
I'm not wearing it right now anyway...

so, as another year moves inexorably towards it's close...
I find myself looking at "time"....
for years, my opponent...there was never enough of it...
all the things that I had to do...
all the things I wanted to do...
never... enough time for both...

the guilt and regret, for time wasted, or , if you will, not well spent,
would consume me, robbing me of any joy I might have had,
for the time I actually managed to accomplish what was needed...

no time for me, my kitties, a life outside of work or God...
and even as the pace of my life slowed towards retirement...
the hours sped by...watching TV, laying around, doing household chores....
reading, though not as much as in the past...
because I would get restless, then escape into "napland"....

and I became aware, more and more, of my own mortality...
so I made the preparations...but that still didn't ease my mind...
tempus fugit [time flies]....
and something was wrong...

then, a month ago yesterday, time stood still for me...
the Creator of the Universe reached out to me,
with the hands of His friends, and pulled me up, into a place,
where "time" as I had known it, ceased to exist...

I lost interest quickly, in the diversions I had been using to block out God,
and started spending time doing more "inner work"....
I found that He was speaking to me, if I would only listen...
but, to do that, off went the "background noise"...
the TV, radio...off... the silence held peace, and joy....and understanding...

and then, the challenge, on a blog,
by one of His friends, and mine...
and then, it was "game on"...
I found myself spending hours, creating, laughing, "plotting"...
and then, laughing some more...

I rediscovered the true joy that comes from spending time with Him,
and in His service....
in creating gifts for those I loved, that were really gifts of time...
and, by extension, a gift of myself...
as a result, all the more valuable...

to sit and imagine the delight of a dear friend,
when they are given something, made just for them...
is beyond anything I had known before...
and unlike many failed expectations in the past...
the results were even better than I'ld hoped,
because the inspiration was from Him...
I just supplied the loving hands, and the time...

and as I have begun to have a different view of "time",
to feel the joy of it spent with Him...
and in service and love of my friends and family,
I have been seeing it come back to me in the same way...

to see a very dear friend and sister, spend hours making something for me,
"worry", that it... "isn't done yet"...and then add something else on to it...
to "make it better...", in reality, to give me even more of herself...
is almost beyond my ability to feel deserving of...

yet, I know her motivation, I also felt it when I spent hours on things for her...
it is His love, He is using us to love each other...
He wants us to know that He loves us like this...
and when we listen to Him, and do as He commands,
we, ordinary people can do extraordinary things...

and it's all about "time"...
He spent "time" here as one of us..."he knows our days..."
He knows that because our days here are numbered,
and "we are, as grass...", the most tangable gift of our love ,
for Him, and each other, is the gift of our time...

whether as time spent in the warm moments of shared food,
music, conversation...and caring...that can go long into a night...
or a passing smile, on the way to the duties of life...

the spending of hours, crafting a gift...doing it and re-doing it,
until you are satisfied that it is just perfect,
for the loved one you are creating it for...
and then, doing it again... just to make sure...
that everyone is happy...you, your beloved and God...

this time, is golden...
this moment you can never retrieve, once you have spent it...
and you have spent it in the service of love...
and Jesus smiles...